Last year, Motorola launched the Moto G Stylus, an affordable phone with … well, a stylus. The company is now gearing up to release the Moto G Stylus 5G, a $400 handset packing an upgraded camera, a two-day battery, and tracking features to help you find the phone’s stylus when it inevitably gets lost in your bed or couch.
The Moto G Stylus runs on a Snapdragon 480 processor with 4GB of RAM and 128GB storage (you can pay extra for a 6GB RAM 256GB storage model). It features a 6.8-inch FHD+ display, 5G connectivity (sub-6Ghz, no mmWave support), a headphone jack, a microSD slot, and a large 5000mAh battery that lasts up to two days on a single charge.
These specs offer minor improvements over the old Moto G Stylus, which utilized a slightly-slower Snapdragon 680 CPU and a smaller 4000maAh battery. Funny enough, of the Moto G Stylus 5G’s improvements lay in its camera array and upgraded, proprietary stylus.
The Moto G Stylus 5G sports a quad camera array with a 48MP main camera, an 8MP ultra-wide lens, a 2MP depth sensor for Portrait mode effects, and a 5MP Macro lens. These lenses should provide more flexibility than the previous model’s limited camera array, and the Moto G Stylus 5G’s upgraded processor may improve photo quality through better computational photography (of course, we can’t verify that until we try the phone).
Unlike the Galaxy Note stylus, the new Moto stylus doesn’t use Bluetooth. That eliminates the possibility of Tile-like tracking features, but interestingly enough, the new Motorola phone actually records your location every time you remove the stylus from its holster. That way, if you lose the stylus, you know the last place you used it.
The new stylus also has a new design. It’s longer than the previous model and has an even, cylindrical shape. This new design should make it easier to take the stylus out of the phone, allows users to put the stylus back without turning it to a specific angle.
If you’re familiar with 5G phones in the $400 price range, then you may notice that the Moto G Stylus is a bit under-spec’d. It has a slower processor and a lower-megapixel camera array than the similarly-priced OnePlus Nord N10 5G and the Samsung A52 5G. It also lacks a high refresh rate display, which is now common in phones at this price range. Evidently, that’s the trade-off for a phone with a cool stylus.
Motorola will start selling the Moto G Stylus 5G for $400 on June 14th. Launching with Android 11, Motorola says that the phone will get an update to Android 12 later this year or early 2022—but that’s it. After that OS update, the Moto G Stylus 5G will only receive security updates.
Source: Motorola
